Park for Benjamin's birthday

Disneyland

I love disneyland in the fall! They have the best decorations! We were able to spend a couple hours last night at the parks and had a blast. And of course, Rob got his high score on the Buzz ride....

Cake Smash

Benjamin is turning ONE this week, so we did some Cake Smash pictures!! It was a lot of fun! I have more on my photo of the day blog... you can see them here

Exhausted

I put Benjamin in his high chair with a cracker while I made dinner. He was very quiet so I looked over and found him like this. Sound asleep! He wouldn't even wake up for dinner!

HELP!! EMILY-- WE NEED YOU!!!

Rob and I like to watch cake decorating shows. They make these big beautiful cakes and they make it look so easy! Benjamin is turning 1 next week, so we decided that we wanted to make his birthday cake for him. Since, we are experts now from watching so many cake decorating shows, we figured it would be easy. Rob wanted to try his hand at fondant, and I was going to use all those fun tips to make it fancy with frosting. I even bought a cute cake pan with balloons on it. And it was supposed to look like this:



I have no idea what happened! I guess i'm not supposed to cover the balloons with frosting because I couldnt' see anything on the cake once frosting was on it! And then I got out the cute tips...man thats hard! Any... All in all... Emily, we need you! You sure that you don't want to fly out to make us a cake? :)





Here is Rob's attempt at making his own fondant. First it was way to wet and then it cracked. Next time. We buy it already made! I wrote the words on my cake above before he finished his. I love you hun, but I think you might have won the worlds ugliest cake award! P.s. Thats raspberries on top. It even has two great layers of fresh raspberries on the inside. I'm sure its delicious!

Benjamin is taking steps

Neither Robbie or Lauren walked until a couple months after their first birthday. Benjamin turns 1 in two weeks (EEK!) and he has decided that he is going to learn to walk! It seems like he just started standing and now he is already taking steps. The most that I have seen is 5 steps! I can't believe he is getting so big! I sure adore this kid! (Grandma and Grandpa...he's starting to walk...isn't it about time you come visit??) :)

We saw a gorilla Today.

We were on a walk today. And we saw a gorilla. We really did. He was hiding in the bushes. I don't think he wanted us to know that he was there. I didn't know that there were gorillas in Redondo Beach.

Ice Plant

With our move to our new house, we also got a nice yard full of ice plant. It was hard to leave our beautiful backyard but nice to go to our new house that was twice the size. The yard he is VERY large....BUT... it is covered in ice plant. We have hopes of having another beautiful big backyard. Hopefully by next summer. But, for now... here is what we've been working on. This pile is over 5 feet tall! I wish that there was a person in the so you would have something to reference with. Just believe me, this is a lot of ice plant!!

I really like this picture-

Labor Day

We had a great Labor Day. We started our day by getting stuff done around the house. (not quite so fun) Then Rob's sister Katie and her husband came over and we visited awhile before going to lunch. The kids loved seeing them but was sad that they had to leave. After lunch we decided to go exploring. this is one of my favorite things to do. I love just seeing what beautiful things we can find. Which normally almost always leads us to Palos Verdes!

This first picture though, was taken at the Port of San Pedro.


Ew... little friend we found hanging around.


I like this guy!


Surfers....


We were lucky enough to see a couple of whales. I was very excited because normally the kids end up really grumpy because mom and dad were seeing whales and they couldn't. This time though, both Lauren and Robbie were able to see them!


Our last minute stop to get pictures of the beautiful sunset!!

Benjamin standing

Frisbee, foxtail and airplane....

I don't know what it is about the foxtail, but I think it is so much fun! It was probably one of my favorite things that we did at the park.

Playing at the park

T-ball

Since this weekend is Rob's last before he has to work 6 days a week we decided to spend some time at the park. Robbie loves T-ball so he and Rob decided to play some catch.

Our new love.... :)

One of our favorite things to have on hand is a Baboli's pizza crust. Don't know why, but we just love them! We've made all kind of pizza and we always love it. I don't know, maybe because its so quick and easy. Yum yum!! I love the one of Robbie holding the pizza out. It looks like he is trying to give the camera a bite!

Our new form of entertainment!

We bought a hammock and a porch swing awhile ago but finally got around to putting it up. Benjamin melted into Rob's arms when he went in the hammock and fell asleep. We all had fun enjoying a lazy Saturday afternoon laying around!

We saw Jupiter!

The cute little dot on the right of the picture is Jupiter. :)

First Steps (kind of)

So, Benjamin has walked around holding on furniture for awhile now. He has even walked while holding on to both of my hands. Today, he walked all the way across the room holding on to only one hand. One of these days, he'll probably take off walking!

Robbie's first day of school

Well, its official! Summer is over and school has started! I feel like other mom's have been saying this for weeks now, but Robbie just had his first day of school today! :) He was very excited but very nervous. It sounds like he has a very good teacher. I'm sure he will do great!